Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Royal Toledo Foundation Award Ceremony, Toledo, Spain
Bismillahi Rahmanir Rahim
Your Majesty, On behalf of all the award
recipients, including the Aga Khan Trust for Culture,
it is my privilege to thank the Royal Toledo Foundation
for its generosity in recognizing their efforts as contributing
to the preservation of historic, cultural and artistic
heritage.
We are particularly honoured
by the presence of Your Majesty among us this evening.
Some may ask if preserving
the material evidence of our past influences the future
positively, helps us live together in peace, and improve
the quality of life.
I believe the answer is a
confident yes. But there is a paradox.
In the developing, including
the Muslim world, many historic cities are home to large
populations who live in extreme poverty. They may contain
some of the greatest treasures of Muslim architecture,
yet many of their inhabitants lack even the most basic
services. They live on the margins of society and feel
trapped in a cycle of poverty.
The risk is that when hope
fades, extremist ideologies feed on the despair that is
born from limitless poverty. Thus, a recent UN Development
Programme study in Latin America reports that a majority
of people surveyed would support authoritarian rule if
it delivered economic progress.
This confirms a universal
tendency. Whatever their faiths or value systems, the
primary, daily concern of peoples everywhere is their
quality of life.
Indeed, the revelation of
Islam - my faith - looks upon freedom from hunger, provision
of appropriate shelter and clothing, security against
fear for one's safety, good health, learning and wisdom,
and generation of wealth as a blessing to strive for,
and to share in the creation of an equitable order of
peace and harmony.
This explains my own role,
as the hereditary Imam - the spiritual leader - of the
Shia Ismaili Muslims, in development activities through
the agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network, or the
AKDN.
Like the Muslim Ummah as
a whole, the worldwide Ismaili community that I lead is
immensely pluralistic, culturally and linguistically.
In our experience and conviction, the creation of a humane,
socially supportive built environment is critical to people's
quality of life.
For this reason, the Historic
Cities Support Programme, a component of the Aga Khan
Trust for Culture, is not only concerned with saving buildings
or historic districts for future generations. It seeks
to go beyond restoration to creating mechanisms that contribute
to real, measurable improvement in the quality of life
in rural and urban areas, also enabling their inhabitants
thereby to look after their cultural assets.
This is the goal of the multi-programme
capacity-building strategies which the AKDN deploys to
help the residents of historic cities or areas, whether
this be the Silk Road, or Kabul and Herat in Afghanistan,
Aleppo in Syria, Mopti in Mali, Zanzibar, or Cairo, the
city that my forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of
Egypt, founded more than a thousand years ago. In all
such places, rehabilitation of cultural heritage is supported
by the work of AKDN agencies specialising in microfinance,
health, education, water and sanitation and promotion
of economic enterprise.
We have evidence to believe
that the processes we have been developing and testing
for the past 20 years have the potential to become self-sustainable.
The expertise and investment that they bring to historic
cities, or indeed the Silk Road, are helping to create
jobs and economic opportunities, for example, through
tourism and by rendering ancient crafts and skills into
marketable products and services.
At the same time, I believe
conservation can play a central role in helping different
civilizations understand each other, to appreciate how
mutually enriching their historic interactions have been,
and the contribution of each to the common heritage of
humanity.
Undeniably, there have been
periods in history when the genius of different civilisations
was perceived as a threat. In recent times also, we have
witnessed attempts by antagonistic social, cultural and
religious forces to impose their own norms on vulnerable
groups.
Be that as it may, the reality
is that our world is pluralistic and multi-cultural, and
destined to remain so.
Ought we not, then, to focus
our attention on periods of history when pluralism was
happily embraced? May we not learn thereby the need to
nurture what I have recently called a cosmopolitan ethic?
For this is the foundation of a merit-based civil society
capable of harnessing the best in all walks of life from
all groups of people. This is the only way to manage,
and build on, pluralism, the critical test of democracy
anywhere.
This brings me to Toledo
which has so successfully preserved, over many centuries,
the evidence of its three-fold culture: magnificent churches,
synagogues and mosques.
This was an era when each
of these cultures, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, retained
its independent identity while all worked and came together
in a glorious intellectual and spiritual adventure. The
legacy was a truly enabling environment conducive to prosperity,
harmony, scientific discovery, philosophical insights
and artistic flowering - all the defining features of
a thriving civilisation.
I believe, therefore, that
the past has the potential to inspire the future positively,
and in the wisdom of investing in its protection, particularly
the protection of cultures under threat.
The Royal Toledo Foundation
deserves admiration for its commitment to keeping alive
this spirit of Toledo.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Foundation
Board,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Muslim Celebrations - Comprehensive List
| Present
Imam Shah Karim Aga Khan IV| 48th
Imam Mowlana Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III | Hazrat Ali | Prophet Muhammad | Ismaili Heroes | Poetry | Audio Page | History | Women's Page | Legacy of Islam | Current Events |
His Highness the Aga Khan's Speeches on Islamic Architecture
His Highness the Aga Khan's Speech at Commonwealth Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford, England
His Highness the Aga Khan interviewed by Paris Match December 1995
His Highness the Aga Khan interviewed by Paris Match December 1994
His Highness the Aga Khan Honored by WMF's famous Hadrian Award
Aga Khan's Baccalaureate address at Brown University May 1996
Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan to the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan delivered at the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference
His Highness the Aga Khan's Speech April 22nd 2001 at the International Convocation of the American Association of Universities
Mowlana
Hazar Imam's Speech at Peshawar University November 30, 1967
His Highness Aga Khan Address at Brown University June 1996
Aga Khan's MIT Convocation Address November 1995
Islamic Architecture Speeches by Mowlana Hazar Imam
Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Foundation Laying Ceremony of the Ismaili Centre in Dubai
His Highness the Aga Khan's Address at the 25th Anniversary Graduation Ceremony of the Institute of Ismaili Studies October 20, 2003
His Highness the Aga Khan's Speech at the Institute of Ismaili Studies 25th Anniversary Session October 19, 2003
Mowlana Hazar Imam Interviewed By PRANAY GUPTE
Who is the Aga Khan Metropolis Magazine
His Highness the Aga Khan interviewed by BBC's John Tidmarsh
